


New Year’s Eve at the Wheelers’, December 1985.

by alteritymonster



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24938137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteritymonster/pseuds/alteritymonster
Summary: Will secretly invents a whole art genre. Yup.
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Kudos: 14





	New Year’s Eve at the Wheelers’, December 1985.

New Year's Eve at the Wheelers', December 1985. Will is in town to see Mike and stay over for a few days. Mike got a computer for Christmas, the new Commodore Amiga. He'd _asked for_ an Atari 800XL—you can play a version of Ghostbusters on it, the game Will and Mike played for hours at a time at Will's house on his Atari console, during the summer before last summer. After life got definitely weird, but before it got... well, like this. Will being so far away. Mike's dad had snapped at Mike that the Amiga is the best computer the store downtown sells; it cost him $1,295, after all. Will and Mike roll their eyes in unison, and both laugh. It's just _like_ Ted to quote the computer's _exact price_ to him. Just like he reminds Mike every time he calls Will on the phone that it costs the Wheelers 30 cents for every minute.

Still, it's a computer, computers are pretty cool. Will moves the “mouse” around on the top of the desk in Mike's bedroom, causing an arrow on the screen to point at things. He finds a program that you can actually  _do art with_ , drawing on the screen in a range of colors like a giant set of crayons. Mike watches Will mess with it, figuring out quickly how to turn crude drawing elements into electronic sketches. Will tells Mike to sit down on his bed. He starts drawing Mike's face in rough blocks of pixels. This isn't the first portrait Will has ever drawn of Mike, but he's never made one quite like this before, colors blended in smooth fades like on one of Jonathan's New Wave album covers. Mike comes back when Will finishes, and it's like nothing he's seen before. Looking a little like some kind of futuristic painting style, or one of those badass computer mugshots in The Terminator or Blade Runner. But also, unmistakably, like Mike. Will still looking ahead at the monitor, Mike's hands fall softly on Will's shoulders and he kisses the top of his head. It's bitchin'.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this story is just an excuse to have Will inventing kitschy pixel art with Mike as his muse. According to the internet, $1,295 in 1985 dollars is about $3,100 in 2020 dollars, and 30 cents a minute is really the average cost of a long-distance call in the mid-80s. Do I assassinate Mike's character, having him whine about having a computer that's too nice? Anyway, the scene is inspired by an actual (marketing) event:
> 
> https://www.fastcompany.com/90206266/amiga-warhol-debbie-harry-the-ultimate-1980s-tech-keynote


End file.
